AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Ben Worsley
The royal commission into child abuse has found the head of the Hillsong Church Brian Houston ignored a conflict of interest in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse against his father.
Brian Houston was president of the Assemblies of God Pentecostal movement in 1999, when his father Frank Houston, a senior pastor at the Sydney Christian Life Centre, confessed to abusing a boy in New Zealand 30 years earlier.
Last year, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told Brian Houston ran the church’s investigation into the matter.
Frank Houston was eventually suspended from preaching but Brian Houston never called police.
Despite Brian Houston’s claim to the contrary, the commission has found there was a conflict of interest between his personal and professional roles and that the church ignored its own policies during the investigation.
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